The War Can't Touch Us Here
by the.eye.does.not.SEE
Summary: Prison cells are lonely places. At least until you close your eyes.


**A/N** : Couldn't resist. Thanks for the inspo, AM.

* * *

 _In my imagination, you're waiting lying on your side_

 _With your hands between your thighs_

 _And a smile_

* * *

She doesn't do much of anything anymore, now that she's been demoted to solitary. She sits and she waits, and she lies on her bed and she waits, and she paces her tiny cell and she waits. She waits for the lights to come on in the morning and she waits for them to be shut off at night. She waits for her meals to arrive, ferried by silent, seemingly deaf guards, and she waits for them to be taken away. She waits for Turner to show up to taunt her or threaten her or mock her and she waits for him to leave.

There is no going into the halls anymore, no going to the cafeteria, no going out in the main yard. The only time she is allowed to leave her cell is to shower or to be deposited in a ten-by-ten cage outdoors, so the prison authorities can say that, by their standards, she has not been mistreated. After all, she gets to see the sun every day, though it is always obscured by razorwire. And she gets to wash every other day, though she has to do so in front of two armed guards, and she is not allowed to turn her back to them.

For safety reasons, they say, but she can feel their eyes on her.

Apart from Turner and all his talk, those eyes on her naked skin are the only human contact she is permitted.

The cells in solitary are soundproofed and windowless, so while she knows she has neighbors, she has never seen, heard, or spoken to them. It isn't like the movies. She doesn't hear unhinged yelling during the day or hysterical crying at night. No one is begging for their mother or cursing God or pounding on the walls. At least, no one is doing those things at a decibel she is allowed to hear.

The only sounds she does hear are the ones she herself makes: the beat of her heart, the hush of her breath, the soft click of her eyelids when she blinks. She does not talk to herself to fill the silence. Instead she thinks.

She thinks of home, of her people, of _him_.

It's always back to Marcos, always. She can't go more than a few hours without returning to him again. He is the drain she circles around day and night, though she never is able to fall fully through. The walls around her keep her locked in place, forcing her to live in the present without him. The collar around her neck reminds her that she isn't with him, and likely never will be again.

She closes her eyes so she can forget, but also so she can remember.

She can see him clearly still, in her memory. If she had a pen, she could draw him exactly, and she wishes she did, because she knows there will come a day soon when she won't be able to recall him so well. She'll forget the curve of his jaw, or the color of his eyes, or the shape of his lips. Soon she won't remember what he looks like at all, except for the details she will have coached herself to remember. Over time, perhaps even those will fade, too.

For now, though, she can see him in her mind's eye without difficulty. She thinks of him at home, in their room on the third floor of the HQ. Theirs is one of the few rooms that actually has a working door, and she wonders if it is closed now. It's late; unless he's on watch tonight, Marcos must be in bed.

She lies back on her cot and she closes her eyes. She pictures him there, alone in their bed, curled up on his side and facing the empty space where she should be. She wonders what he does, during these nights while they're apart and he's by himself. She smooths her palms against the sides of her legs. She wonders if he's doing to himself what she's thinking of doing to herself right now.

She swallows, squeezing her eyes shut tighter as she thinks about it, thinks about him. She can feel excitement flickering inside her, memory fueling desire, because watching him that first time isn't something she has ever been able to forget.

She moves her hands, smoothing them over the front of her prison-issue shirt, and then over her prison-issue pants. She is stalling on purpose, putting herself off the way he might, if he were in the mood to tease her. _Be patient,_ he'd whisper in her ear, making even the words come out slowly, so eventually she'd have no choice but to pull at him: at his shirt, at his pants, at his body, until patience was as meaningless to him as it was to her. She smiles, remembering.

But as quickly as that flash of happiness has appeared, it disappears, and then she opens her eyes. She looks up at the ceiling, seeing nothing in her immediate field of vision except unpainted concrete. But there, at the edge of her periphery… There's the camera.

It's one of those sleek, black, 360-degree ones: a bisected sphere screwed into the ceiling that sees all, knows all, and records all. She tilts her head to stare at it, to look into its unblinking eye, and all at once she decides that she doesn't care what it sees. She doesn't care what it records, or who watches the recording. She can still feel Marcos, real and alive and waiting for her in her mind, waiting for her on their bed, and she won't pass up this opportunity. She will take any small moment of peace, of pleasure, even if it's illusory. It's the most she can scrape out of this place, and so it will have to be enough.

She thinks of his hands first. She thinks of how smooth his palms are, how strong. She thinks of them resting on top of her thighs, and she closes her eyes, mimicking what she wishes was his touch.

She spreads her legs slowly, the way he would. She holds herself open for a moment, knees apart, as if she were naked, as if he were here to take her in. She smiles a little as she imagines the look on his face. He has always loved watching her.

She can still remember the first time he asked. It had been late, so late it was almost early, and they had been drinking in their room. Not too much—just enough for them to become a little silly, a little handsy. A little lazy. She had been complaining about him spending so many hours of the last few nights out tracking with John, leaving her to a bed that was empty and cold until he stumbled in at two or three or sometimes four AM. And he wasn't even _useful_ when he came home: that was the crux of her complaint.

He had laughed at that, snatching the bottle of whiskey out of her hands and swallowing a good bit before he pointed out that, if she felt he wasn't being _useful_ , she could certainly take matters into her own hands. He might be too tired after he came home to help most nights, he admitted, but the least he could do was be a supportive boyfriend and watch. She'd kicked him in the shin for that, but he'd only grinned, dropping the whiskey bottle on the floor so he could wrap his arms around her instead.

"Come on," he goaded, pulling her close. "Show me what you do when I'm not around."

She shook her head, refusing with a smile. "Only if you show me what you do first."

She'd expected them to leave it at that. Their teasing often ended in stalemates back then, with each of them unprepared to push past their own, or each other's, boundaries. But something was different that night. Maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was all the time apart. Maybe it was nothing at all except another step forward in their relationship.

"Fine," he whispered, leaning forward to kiss her. "You want me to show you, I'll show you."

Then he pulled away, reached for the zipper on his pants, and did as asked. She was speechless from that moment on, so intent on watching him that she didn't bother to form sentences, let alone words. There had been something about him that night… Something about watching him lose himself like that, in front of her, _for_ her, that had been… beautiful. The way he held eye contact with her right up until he broke; the way he gritted his teeth and panted for breath; the way he whispered her name as he touched himself, his voice so deep and needy that she could nearly feel it reverberating inside her ribcage.

She squeezes her eye shut tight now, remembering, reenacting. She has one hand beneath her pants, the other beneath her shirt. She casts her mind out, imagining his hands, his fingers, in place of her own. She can feel herself getting warmer under her own touch, and the heat reminds her of him: of his hands, his mouth, his tongue…

She pushes her fingers in deeper, sharper, the way he did sometimes, the way that always earned him a few bloody scratches on the forearm by the time they were done. She kept her nails too long and dug them in too deep, but he never seemed to mind. After all, he was always the one that pushed her too far, and knew what her retaliation would be. She suspected—still suspects—that he's proud of the marks she leaves behind, the way little boys are proud of playground bruises and skinned knees. Battle scars.

 _Don't think of scars._

She shakes her head to clear the thought and moves her other hand from one breast to the other, squeezing, kneading, wishing she could feel his mouth there instead. Wishing she could feel the scrape of his stubble against her skin; his tongue smoothing over her hard nipples; his teeth biting gently, just enough to get her to cry out, to make her gasp his name.

He had to be careful doing that—the HQ was never truly empty, and the moments they found alone were always at someone else's expense. They tried their best not to disrupt others' sleep, but sometimes it was impossible to hold back, and the sour looks they got the mornings after were often well-deserved.

And so they relocated. They made the exterior walls of the HQ their bed when no one else was around, or they snuck off into the nearby woods, a few blankets under their arms. That was always his favorite—and consequently it was hers, too. Sometimes they would spend whole evenings out there, and in between making love they'd look up at the stars and wonder about kinder worlds apart from their own. Sometimes they told each other secrets and stories—of their childhoods, of their lives before the Underground, of their hopes for the future.

They were always quiet when they got to that last topic, always careful with one another when they very tentatively sketched out future plans. Neither of them wanted to be the one to push the other too far, and often instead of talking things out, they usually ended up in each other's arms again, finding it easier to communicate their hopes for each other through touch alone.

He was always so gentle with her during those times, so attentive, to the point that months before he ever said he loved her, she knew it to be true. She knew and she felt it too and yet she had stayed silent all that time—why had she done that? Why had she squandered so much of the little time they'd had together?

 _None of that matters now; stop thinking_.

But she can't. There's nothing to do here except think. And even when she's trying to drown herself in warm memories of him, others surface.

Why had she turned away from him in that alley? She should have gotten him out safely; she shouldn't have let her emotions control her. She should never have put revenge for him over love for him. Even he had yelled at her to stop. But she hadn't listened. Why hadn't she listened to him, just that once? She might be home now if she had.

 _No. No, no, no. Don't think of that alley. Don't think of that night. You did what you had to do._

She blows out a sharp breath, forcing those thoughts away as she pushes herself harder, propelling her body to the end as quickly as she can. She can't keep thinking like this or she'll never have peace. She needs to remember the good things— _only_ the good things if she's going to survive. She is in enough misery here without adding any more.

Her hands aren't as good as his, but in the end, they are enough. She comes with a low groan, lifting her hips off the bed and driving her fingers deeper and deeper, pushing herself through the aftershocks the same way he would, if he were inside her. She runs her free hand down the middle of her chest, pushing down hard, pretending it is his body collapsing on top of hers. His sweat, mixing with hers. His voice in her ear, gasping for air but laughing at the same time, telling her how much he loves her.

"I love you too."

Her eyes are closed as she breathes the words, barely audible, and in the shimmering darkness behind her eyelids, she can see him smile in response. It is a knowing smile, but a grateful one too. He has always been so grateful for her, and in all these years, she has never been able to find the courage to ask him why.

But it doesn't matter now. It can't matter.

It takes her a few minutes, after she cools off, to remember the camera. She turns her head tiredly, finding its dark eye set on her, as ever. She stares back at it and wonders who was watching. Just a guard? Or Turner, maybe?

She waits for the humiliation to flood her, but it doesn't come. Instead, she feels resilient. Physically exhausted, yes, but mentally invigorated. She hopes they heard her. She hopes they were watching.

She hopes they realize that, even locked up alone in here, she can still find a way to outsmart their sick system, to survive despite it. She may not have Marcos, it's true, but she does have the memory of him, of them, and that is enough to keep her going.

It has to be.


End file.
